Praying In The Wrong Direction
The Daily Mail reports that worshipers at a mosque in Turkey have been praying in the wrong direction for 37 YEARS! According to one news outlet, the mosque was built facing the wrong direction in 1981.
To make matters worse, it is believed that this was the result of it being built based on the original mosque, which would mean that these worshipers have not been praying in the direction of Mecca, as prescribed, even longer than previously thought.
As Christians, we understand that it doesn't really matter what direction we face when we pray. God is everywhere. Rather, it's our earnest determination to seek God and to know His will that Jesus promised to bless when He said, "Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you" (Matthew 7:7).
We pray in the wrong direction when we pray for the wrong things, or when we pray for the right things but with the wrong motives. We pray in the wrong direction whenever we seek our will instead of God's.
"This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us" (1 John 5:14).
Prayer Changes Me
In the 2003 movie Bruce Almighty, Jim Carrey portrays a television reporter named Bruce Nolan. Bruce is a man who constantly complains about God. At one point he complains that, “God is a mean kid sitting on an anthill with a magnifying glass, and I'm the ant. He could fix my life in five minutes if He wanted to, but He'd rather burn off my feelers and watch me squirm.”
God (played by Morgan Freeman) confronts Bruce and says, “You've been doing a lot of complaining about me, Bruce. Quite frankly, I'm tired of it.” To prove to Bruce that He knows what He’s doing, God offers to let Bruce try to run the world in His place. Feeling confident he is up to the task, Bruce excitedly accepts. He soon realizes, however, the enormity and complexity of God’s work, particularly in answering prayers. In one scene, Bruce is so overwhelmed at the amount of prayers he has to answer, that he has them all put into a database and answers “Yes” to every one. As a result, over 400,000 people get the winning lottery numbers, but they only win $17.00 each.
Intellectually we all understand that God cannot say yes to every request we bring before Him, but I imagine many of us have wondered why he doesn’t say yes more often. We have difficulty understanding why some people seem to have their prayers answered, but when we pray for the same thing, heaven seems silent. We wonder, “Does prayer really change things?” Yes, it most certainly does! But it might not always bring the change we are expecting.
In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done." Jesus' initial request was not granted but the ultimate desire of His heart was. God's will was done. And His own heart was prepared for what would follow because He submitting Himself to God's will ahead of time. He went from "deeply sorrowful" to accepting of His circumstances. God cannot say yes to every request, but desiring His will before our own changes the most important thing ... us!
Man Digs Hole In The Jungle For God
The Mirror reports:
A man claims God told him to start digging a hole 18 years ago, and he literally hasn't stopped since.
Santiago Sanchez, 69, says he regards it as the Lord's work and he devotes every waking hour to the project.
The pensioner heads to the tunnel in the city of Berlin, in the western El Salvador department of Usulutan, at around 3 AM.
And every time he emerges he is carrying around 90 pounds of rock, stones and debris, following what God told him.
… It is no easy task, and the journalist who went into the tunnel to have a look confessed that by the time he got halfway, was struggling to breathe and had to leave quickly.
… Despite his conviction that he is following God's orders, he has many critics and many more who laugh at what he is doing.
His wife, named Isabel Ventura, said that "there are people who say that he is crazy" but he answers that "no one knows what God is going to demand from you."
Is Santiago Sanchez doing God's will by digging a hole in the middle of the jungle? He certainly thinks he is, and that may be all that matters. Here’s the really interesting thing about God’s will; it can be attached to anything you do, even the most mundane of activities.
The Bible says, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving” (Colossians 3:23-24). That means any task can become a divine calling, if it's done with the right motivation!
The real question isn't whether Mr. Sanchez is doing God's will but are you? If you flip hamburgers, you can choose to flip hamburgers for the Lord, or you can flip hamburgers for the pay. Every person in every walk of life and vocation can choose to serve God there.
It doesn’t take a special revelation from God to discover His will for your life. It just takes a heart that wants to please God in all circumstances.
"No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money" (Matthew 6:24).